2013-03-09 12:30:23

Hello everybody!

Some stuff about the past:
I am doing game design as a hobby, your generic one-man indie developer.
In that hobby I like to explore, to do things out of the ordinary.
This lead me to the thought of developing 'a game without visuals'.
At first, this was just exploration in the art of game design for me,
but my slow brain finally drew the conclusion: "This can be played by blind people!".
So I thought: why not make the most out of it (in terms of people having fun - the game is completely free, not even in-app purchases big_smile ).

Some stuff about the present:
I have an 'open beta' of my game running here.
It requires the Unity3D browser plugin to play - if you do not have that, you will be asked to install it automatically.
It also requires stereo sound, but even your standard mp3-player headphones should suffice.
Blind Sensei is a minigame where you are a blind master of the martial arts, detecting enemies by their footsteps
and serving them the knuckle sandwich they deserve.
At the moment, it is still in the beta phase - even the name could still change. It also might not be very balanced, but being a student, I do not have the time for extensive playtesting myself.

Some stuff about the future:
Lucky for me, there is always the possibility of crowdsourcing - but I need the right crowd for that.
Actually my goal is twofold: Make some more people have fun with the game and get some feedback
from people that are trained in listening.
So far, the game seems to be quite difficult, I wonder if there will be a significant difference if I get some feedback from here.
If you give some feedback, let me thank you in advance!


In case you are having the same problems as my friends so far:
Controls
A - attack left
W - attack forward
D - attack right
In level 1 you have to beat 10 enemies coming from the front, it is meant as a tutorial.
In level 2, there are 15 enemies, also coming from the left and right.
From then on, there are 5 more enemies per level until level 4, from then on there are always 25 enemies per level.
There is a total of 8 levels with later levels playing on gravel and sand underground.


Now a small disclaimer:
I know very little about living a life without vision - if I offended somebody due to this ignorance, I apologise for that.
And please, do not just take this apology, but also call my attention to it so I can eradicate the flaw.

Now, a nice day to everybody, and have a few minutes of fun with my game!

2013-03-09 17:53:49

hello and welcome to the forum.

Thank you for taking interest in developing for the audiogame community and specifically considering the blind and vision impaired. 

Since you have been rather forthcoming and honest with everyone on here as far as your experience developing a game of this caliber goes, I feel the need to do the same.  Hopefully what I offer here may encourage you in the right direction and give you incentive to continue with this undertaking.

I am pleased with the ideas you have provided thus far and you are on the right path as far as audiogaming goes, showcasing important things such as opponents in stereo and providing vocal instruction, and while your game hardly feels like a fighting style game it does show signs of developing.  Play reminds me of certain space invader styled games in which you have to shoot down ships coming from different  directions or what have you.  I have, however,  dealt with mainstream titles such as Mortal Kombat, which are if only accidentally accessible to the totally blind and vision impaired owing to their nature, generally almost always requiring that players be in close contact for melee purposes and the like, so I hope this explains my statements and expectations on fighting games. 

IN any case, I've yet to see a convincing title on the audiogames side of such magnitude, and as previously stated, I do believe your game and your techniques can evolve.  For someone who knows nothing about audiogaming, this is certainly a great first atempt, and I am hoping that we here more from you in future.  You're on the right path; stick around here and you'll have plenty of suggestions if and when you want them. smile

When life gives you oranges, demand lemons since everyone else is obviously getting them.

2013-03-09 19:13:32

I can't download this game. Please, where can I download it?

2013-03-09 20:31:44

you play it directly in your browser. you don't have to download the game. when first clicking on the link that the author gave you will have an other link install unity 3d. install it and the game will start.

“Get busy living or get busy dying.”
Stephen King

2013-03-09 20:53:31

Have it some sounds?

2013-03-09 21:37:56 (edited by Roughstylez 2013-03-09 21:38:20)

@Nocturnus
Of course you are right, it is a beta version.
I don't really expect bugs, but the gameplay needs finetuning... or rather, any tuning at all. *grin*
If it does not feel like a fighting game - I do not feel bad about that.
My aim is always to make a game that is fun, this time with the added goal of making it accessible.
Thanks for the encouraging words, it's good to hear I am not totally heading in the wrong direction!
PS You said my game and techniques can evolve... do you have (a) suggestion(s) for that?

@vsmiro
Yes, it has sounds - sounds are actually all what this game is about! *grin*
However, I forgot to notice a quirky thing with the Unity webplayer:
It runs in a little box on the webpage and the whole player will pause when this box is not selected/active.
That means it would also not play any sound, maybe that is the problem.
I am unsure about this point because it happens to me when I click outside of the box,
but as I have read by now, you would rather be using a keyboard?

@everybody
It would be nice to answer some questions when you are giving feedback, namely:
A) Are there notable things? Things that catch your attention? (good or bad)
B) How far did you get?
C) On a scale from 1 to 10, how difficult would you rate the game?

2013-03-10 19:48:46

If I were you I'd play swamp, that sounds like what you are trying to do kind of...
BTW, on a windows 7 64 bit running firefox, I am not given a prompt to install the game. Perhaps you can add a link that I can click on to play the game that would check for the program when I click on it, not just the webpage with descriptions and whatnot? Because I have no idea what is suposed to happen to get it started.
Thanks,

2013-03-16 19:24:24

Pew much stuff to do for university this week, didn't get to working on the game.

@frastlin
Swamp sounds like a good distinguishable area, though it will be very loud sounds, so it would need to be an early stage.
I already made an appointment with a sound engineering student
and we want to record some sounds with his equipment, we'll see if swamp sounds are doable with our resources.

You do not need to install the game itself as it will run in the browser, but you need to install the Unity browser plugin.
Here's the link to the browser plugin page. big_smile

The link in the first post with the descriptions etc also contains the game, but it gets paused and thus has no sounds when it's not active, for example when I click somewhere else on the page. It is definitely an obstacle I did not think of before.

Would you actually prefer a downloadable executable file?

2013-03-16 20:30:39

While it is common to have executable files they certainly aren't necessary; indeed the only shot I've had at the game was not seriously impacted by it not featuring an exe.

Just to clarify, swamp is a first person shooter designed with the blind in mind made by a sighted developer who has made quite a few other games with different concepts in mind; if you ever have time to do so, you might consider playing some of the games found on our databass to give you an idea of what developers tend to do when it comes to substituting audio for visuals and so on.

To develop this game any further you'll need to figure out exactly what it is you want to do with it.  Currently from my experience I think it feels more like a space invaders style game; a game called sonic invaders actually comes to mind which allowed you to fire laser cannons from different angles by using x, c, v, n, m, and comma for directions from left to right, and the space bar at the center.  The ships made different sounds as they descended, sometimes switching directions on the player before he or she was able to fire on them, which made the game that much trickier and gave one incentive to keep playing.  As one progressed the ships moved faster and more of them came more frequently.

Your game plays similarly, with the exception that you've used different sound affects to represent moving human opponents, and the punch sound to represent a succesfull attack, or the failure sound, which I cannot describe in words but which is rather amusing to say the least.  smile

Sidescrollers, platformers, first person shooters and other styles of audiogames are represented differently.  I don't know how one would go about dealing with a hand to hand combat game, and I've never seen one with purely audio concepts; hopefully one of our many developers on the forum can weigh in on this one more effectively than I can.  Of course the end result is all up to you, and I'm just shooting off the top of my head on what I've been able to gather over the past couple of years.  There are plenty of gamers who have different preferences and ideas, and we welcome everyone who wants to try knew concepts on us.  smile

When life gives you oranges, demand lemons since everyone else is obviously getting them.